A Poem to Capture my Mother

[Our abuse recovery guide]

How does one begin to explain the years of roller coaster rides, abuse, guilt, and pain?  I wrote this poem a few years ago and thought I would share, because I feel like so many adult children of BPD mothers will find commonalities with my story.



The Sweet Scent of Narcissus  (By SKZ)

I was born to my mother’s mouth,

raised by her thin lips when they smiled,

but constantly thrown when they frowned,

and those same pink impressions

killed me six years ago

when she threw up more benzapine

than she could choke down

in an hour, and

I found her coffee-coated hair

along my pillow while her stained body, swaddled

in strawberry sheets, hid in some other reality

she murmured about, without disturbing her

charcoal lashes.   

‘Why have you taken to spilling

coffee in my bed now that I’m old

enough to understand?”

“Because, Because, Because!

I don’t want you going,

there are black flees

that drink the blood of young

girls like you, and did I tell you

I was raped there by a doctor?

Don’t trust anyone who isn’t beautiful

like the rain mixed with snow in December,

and don’t forget your ice-skates or life-jacket.” 

She stripped once in our living room, dazzling

herself with her cheerleader curves, and leaving

Victoria’s lacey Secret sprawled

on the couch, somehow forgot her

bare-bottomed adventure the next day

and blamed my father’s inadequacy, which I

understood later when I could orgasm and 

she loved the rain because she could

melt with it as it smeared her mascara and plastered

hair to her damp cheeks as little drips

fell from Shirley Temple curls, and 

she would watch those storms for hours as April

showered her with emotion, and my father usually

peeled her soaking body from the mud before

she could blame him for letting her drown

in tear-drop reflections.

We never had red bulbs on our Christmas trees

‘Because, they remind me of when Art raped me

on crimson sheets three years after I turned eighteen’

and that was fine with me, because my mother

had no idea that I could remember the time she

pulled a knife across her wrists while

threatening to leave everything behind;

and she would have left us that day, my birthday,

had my father not wrestled the blade from her

grasp.  She would have done that for me after

leaving a trail of red ink through my grandmothers

house, marking every card with a vivid

reminder of the mistakes her mother

made raising her, because she wanted

to protect me ‘from my mothers

evil intentions.  No one will ever hurt my

daughter, you deserve more and so

do I, because my mother only sent me

a dollar in college even though Tom touched

my breasts, and your fathers

ex-girlfriend tried to drown herself in

a hurricane, and even when Steve Grogan

asked me to Prom I declined, because Sheanna,

I’m a pretty amazing woman!’

But it was September that she loved the most

when she could dance with the leaves and

sing-yell about her mothers neglect and all the times

her father molested her with his eyes that

probably never even saw past the book he

withdrew to.

The fireflies she crushed in her palm

made her glow as she moved up and down

Up and down

Up and down like her moods on any day like

Sunday when she locked my dad in the bathroom

and yelled for an hour about how

his abuse had deflated her and she couldn’t

go on being the victim of his ~, except

she forgot to mention all the times she

hid his keys and stole his credit card to pay

for hotel rooms and Cinderella fantasies,

And this year, while my father and I

cook the turkey together again without her,

my brother proudly hangs a red bulb on his wreath

as I stare at my mothers tinted reflection there

and I can’t help but wonder where

she is and when she’ll come

back from this years holiday ball.

[shimmersh]

How does one begin to explain the years of roller coaster rides, abuse, guilt, and pain?  I wrote this poem a few years ago and thought I would share, because I feel like so many adult children of BPD mothers will find commonalities with my story.



The Sweet Scent of Narcissus  (By SKZ)

I was born to my mother’s mouth,

raised by her thin lips when they smiled,

but constantly thrown when they frowned,

and those same pink impressions

killed me six years ago

when she threw up more benzapine

than she could choke down

in an hour, and

I found her coffee-coated hair

along my pillow while her stained body, swaddled

in strawberry sheets, hid in some other reality

she murmured about, without disturbing her

charcoal lashes.   

‘Why have you taken to spilling

coffee in my bed now that I’m old

enough to understand?”

“Because, Because, Because!

I don’t want you going,

there are black flees

that drink the blood of young

girls like you, and did I tell you

I was raped there by a doctor?

Don’t trust anyone who isn’t beautiful

like the rain mixed with snow in December,

and don’t forget your ice-skates or life-jacket.” 

She stripped once in our living room, dazzling

herself with her cheerleader curves, and leaving

Victoria’s lacey Secret sprawled

on the couch, somehow forgot her

bare-bottomed adventure the next day

and blamed my father’s inadequacy, which I

understood later when I could orgasm and 

she loved the rain because she could

melt with it as it smeared her mascara and plastered

hair to her damp cheeks as little drips

fell from Shirley Temple curls, and 

she would watch those storms for hours as April

showered her with emotion, and my father usually

peeled her soaking body from the mud before

she could blame him for letting her drown

in tear-drop reflections.

We never had red bulbs on our Christmas trees

‘Because, they remind me of when Art raped me

on crimson sheets three years after I turned eighteen’

and that was fine with me, because my mother

had no idea that I could remember the time she

pulled a knife across her wrists while

threatening to leave everything behind;

and she would have left us that day, my birthday,

had my father not wrestled the blade from her

grasp.  She would have done that for me after

leaving a trail of red ink through my grandmothers

house, marking every card with a vivid

reminder of the mistakes her mother

made raising her, because she wanted

to protect me ‘from my mothers

evil intentions.  No one will ever hurt my

daughter, you deserve more and so

do I, because my mother only sent me

a dollar in college even though Tom touched

my breasts, and your fathers

ex-girlfriend tried to drown herself in

a hurricane, and even when Steve Grogan

asked me to Prom I declined, because Sheanna,

I’m a pretty amazing woman!’

But it was September that she loved the most

when she could dance with the leaves and

sing-yell about her mothers neglect and all the times

her father molested her with his eyes that

probably never even saw past the book he

withdrew to.

The fireflies she crushed in her palm

made her glow as she moved up and down

Up and down

Up and down like her moods on any day like

Sunday when she locked my dad in the bathroom

and yelled for an hour about how

his abuse had deflated her and she couldn’t

go on being the victim of his ~, except

she forgot to mention all the times she

hid his keys and stole his credit card to pay

for hotel rooms and Cinderella fantasies,

And this year, while my father and I

cook the turkey together again without her,

my brother proudly hangs a red bulb on his wreath

as I stare at my mothers tinted reflection there

and I can’t help but wonder where

she is and when she’ll come

back from this years holiday ball.

[GeekyGirl]

Oh my goodness, that's so sad but well written, shimmersh.   Did writing that help you get your feelings out?

It's great that we have a number of artists/poets/musicians here--I really think that being creative through art, writing and music helps us form healthy outlets to work through our feelings.

[ScarletOlive]

shimmersh, oh wow, thank you for sharing this. The story you tell is very emotional and sad, and yet there is an effervescent glow to the words, like a hope beyond the pain. It's really an amazing poem. Your use of imagery and metaphor is great, and the poem has a kind of humming rhythm that swells like a song.   Has the poem's meaning changed at all for you since you wrote it? Take care, dear one.